Firestorm - Ellie Masters

1

Asher

The carnage from my youngest brother’s Welcome Home party is everywhere. Empty beer bottles litter the floor. Wine bottles sprawl haphazardly over the countertops. Whiskey bottles—yes, that’s plural—are stacked three high on the coffee table, and there’s a tequila graveyard where countless crushed limes mourn their fallen gods.

The pain in my head, however, is not due to a hangover.

The swelling in my left eye throbs. My knuckles are a bloody mess. I work my jaw side to side, opening and closing it against a dull ache.

“Brody! Cage!” I yell out for my brothers. I should call them Shit-head and Ass-wipe. “Where the hell are you?” My eyes pinch with pain.

People talk about the twin connection being a thing. I don’t know anything about that, but as the eldest of identical triplets, I can testify to the crazy connection between us. That mystical link is how I know Brody is passed out on the porch before I head outside, and how I know Cage is currently working nameless chick number three to her fourth orgasm in the barn.

It’s a problem because I need to go out to the barn and I’m not looking forward to walking in on my fucking brother—fucking.

I kick the porch door. It slams against the exterior stone of the house. Brody startles and pops up from the couch he appropriated for the night. His forest green gaze snaps to mine.

“What the fuck, Ace?” He runs his fingers through a mop of midnight black hair. It falls in front of his eyes and he gives a practiced flip, the same one I use to get the hair out of my eyes.

Like I thought, he spent the night curled up outside. Evidence of the party extends out here. More bottles, most of which are empty, tell a tale of heavy drinking and there’s more. I scrunch my nose at the used condoms next to the couch.

“Dude, you’d better be picking up that shit.” I make a point to kick over a small trash can. “Start with that.” My eye catches a third sticking out from under the couch. “Holy crap, three?”

“It was a good night.” Brody gives me a cheeky grin.

I shake out my hand and look at the bruising on the back of my knuckles. My nemesis, Felix-fucking-Franklin, got in a couple good swings. I’ve got the black eye and sore jaw to prove it, but I brought him to his knees. Fucker was no match for me in high school and he’s no better now.

Fucking putz.

“You look like crap.” Brody yawns and stretches his arms over his head. “Nice shiner. What happened? You run into someone’s fist by accident?”

My anger is no less now than a few hours earlier. “Felix-fucking-Franklin’s right hook gave me the damn shiner. His left hook did a number on my jaw, but that’s all he had time for before I split his lip, bruised his eye, cracked a couple ribs, and kicked him hard enough in the nuts he won’t be walking for a week.”

“Damn. Way to go. When the fuck did he get back in town?”

“Don’t know. Don’t fucking care. He looks like shit. If I never see his smug-assed face again, I’ll die a happy man.”

“Dude’s got some balls. La Rouge property is a no-go zone for that asshole, especially after what he tried.” Brody leans back on the couch and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“The fucker fucked my girl, under my own goddamn roof, while I was inside doing shots of tequila. I think it’s pretty clear what he was thinking.”

“He slept with Erin?”

“Fucking putz.” Erin’s my girlfriend…or was. Shit, I had a ring waiting for the right moment.

“How’d you find out?”

“Knight.” I rub the back of my neck and jerk a thumb over my shoulder toward the barn.

“Huh?” Brody glances out toward the barn. The barn door is wide open, almost always is. I think I’ve closed it maybe once or twice in a year.

“Knight went all batshit crazy last night. When I went to check on him, I found Felix balls deep inside Erin, fucking her brains out right next to Knight’s stall. You know how he can be.” Knight is a high-strung stallion with attitude, who basically hates every human but me. “Felix gave me a cheeky assed grin, so I punched him.”

“Well that’s fucked up.”

“No shit.”

“Told you Erin was shit.” Brody gives a satisfied snort. I hear it in his tone, but he doesn’t say ‘I told you so’ out loud. Brody and Cage never